Asbestos buddies

In his State of the Union address, Bush made an unusually specific remark on class action lawsuits. He states that “Justice is distorted, and our economy is held back, by irresponsible class actions and frivolous asbestos claims”. It is interesting that Bush should single out asbestos because while CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney oversaw the acquisition of Dresser Industries, which was forced to pay huge sums to settle a class action lawsuit about asbestos. Now, if these class action lawsuits were totally frivolous, surely there would be no scientific evidence of the harm asbestos causes workers and even more certainly there would be no suggestions by corporate executives that asbestos is harmful to workers. However, this is not the case. For example, in an internal memorandum of the National Gypsum Company dated September 22, 1958, the author notes that “We know that you will never lose sight of the fact that perhaps the greatest hazard in your plant is with men handling asbestos. Because just as certain as death and taxes is the fact that if you inhale asbestos dust you get asbestosis [a pulmonary disease that is often fatal]. This means adequate dust control systems properly maintained to assure concentration within your state maximum allowable limits”. Yet again Bush has come out to pander to the industries close to the administration’s heart (which of course runs through its wallet)!